Patricia Barber still sounds like a dream at the Green Mill

For years, Monday nights at the Green Mill have been synonymous with one of the most original singer-pianists in jazz: Chicagoan Patricia Barber. The liquidity of her vocals and the bracing elegance of her pianism have won her an international audience, particularly among listeners with an ear for unconventional yet gently seductive music-making.

On Monday evening, Barber again took to the dimly lit stage of the Green Mill, playing before the most hushed audience you'll encounter at a club otherwise known for its palpable energy. Everything about this set suggested that Barber – still restlessly creative – is heading in new artistic directions once again.

For starters, Barber recently moved up the start time for her sets to 8 p.m., an hour earlier than shows usually begin at the Mill. More important, she built most of this performance on new, original material she has been honing in preparation for recording this summer. Having recently signed with Concord, she'll go into the studio to cut an album entirely of originals to be released next year.

The songs she unveiled on Monday night proved every bit as hyper-literate as one expected, but also richly expressive of our times. In "Scream" – which Barber sang mostly at a whisper – she gave voice to the economic and spiritual crises of recession-era America. Yet within the arc of a single song, she also pointed to an implied hope and redemption. If the lyrics addressed epic issues, the softly sensual melody brought the song back to a human scale, its sinuously descending line amounting to a lament, albeit a delicately stated one.

"The Wind" showed Barber's increasing craft at reflecting the meaning of a lyric in the profile of a musical phrase; and "Devil's Food" was characteristically packed with metaphoric content.

All of these songs, and others, will require repeated listening to fully grasp. Barber's compositions tend to be too richly layered to reveal all their truths after a single hearing. Far from it.

But, overall, it's apparent that Barber has been working assiduously on her songwriting since her last release on a major label, "The Cole Porter Mix" (Blue Note, 2008). That album explored the work of America's greatest lyricist-composer – and an obvious inspiration for Barber – but also included three Barber originals.

Why has it been so long since she has gone into the recording studio?

"First let me say, I needed a break from recording every year," she told me last week, in an email. "That's not healthy for the music. It's almost impossible to make substantial change/growth without study, work, seclusion. So it was my decision (then I was still on Blue Note) to take some time off and go back to work.

"Now I'm excited about recording again and am ready. I feel that my music has grown in all respects, the composition, the piano playing, the singing."

That much was crystal clear on Monday night, whether Barber was performing originals or the occasional standard. In both cases, her music sounded contemplative and relaxed, as if a degree of tension (musical and otherwise) had been released. In the age-old "I Thought About You," Barber took an ultra-slow tempo – ironic, considering that the song concerns a train trip – and found interpretive nuances and whimsical subtexts other singers somehow have overlooked for the past few decades or so.

The musicians who accompanied Barber understood the amount of space and quiet she needs, and she benefited from the delicacy of drummer Eric Montzka's brush work, the lithe rhythms of Larry Kohut's bass playing and the atmospheric contributions of John Kregor on acoustic and electric guitars.

But even regarding her collaborators, Barber is in flux, perpetually rotating musicians onto the bandstand. On any given Monday, you can't be sure exactly who'll be working alongside her.

"I have all kinds of musicians coming and going at the Green Mill these days," explained Barber. "The best of the young musicians in Chicago and more mature musicians I might have been afraid to work with before. I am unafraid now after having toured with a Parisian bassist, a N.Y. drummer and a passel (of) energetic and innovative 20-something-year-olds."

So Barber – who, unlike many singer-pianists of her stature, seems to revel in exploring unfamiliar territory – should have a great deal to say when she records in Chicago this summer. She'll be joined in the studio by yet another group of musicians, with New Yorkers Sam Anning on bass and Ross Pederson on drums, plus Chicagoan Kregor on guitar, the sensitivity of his work clearly resonating with Barber's own.